D Goffe's Online Journal

rafa was on the bed in pain not moving or saying a word to anyone, mum was still in shock always holding his hand praying to god saying ‘ why my son, why my son’, i felt sorry for ma because rafa was her fist born and was the man of the house. Me and ma slept over at the hospital for days and days, mum never went to work and i never went to school.

the day is now Thursday in the morning and an hour went by and all we heard was a beep,i woke up and in saw the scale on one level so i rushed to mum and asked her whats happening ma looked at the scale and her face dropped and shouted help all we saw was doctors and nurses running in the room holding my ma back trying to restrain her. the doctors dragged her out of the room and we just waited, i looked at ma and said everything is going to be alright, she responded i know son. a couple of hours later the doctors still was not out of that room. i asked if my brother was ok and they responded “no he died a few hours later.” as they mentioned those words mami dropped on the floor and started to cry saying ” Lord why him”.

two days later when mami  came back from the usual shift, she jut came to the living room, put on the tv and just looked straight at it the tv ignoring me, nothing was the same without rafa at home, mum was always nervous at home, i dont know why she was not herself at home because it scared me.

a week goes by and mum needed to pay for the funeral service for rafa but mum could not because she quit her job so no income was not coming through as the only parent therefore i got a job and helped mummy out. as mami was struggling to pay rent i surprised herb by giving the money i made in the month to help her sort her self out as mami saw the money she was so happy and cheerful but you could see her anxiousness on her face, she asked me, where did i get this money from then i responded i got a job mami was not happy and replied i do not need your help i said to her but what about rafas funeral and she said i will take care of that just go to school.

i did not know what i was going to do with this money so i booked a sevice with the funeral conductors and payed for rafas funeral without mami knowing. i invited family to come and they pay there respects so they did, the only person i needed to convince was mama. the next day when she woke up i took her to rafts funeral, she was amazed but sad , so she just kept thanking me

As ma and i walked through the door all we saw was Rafa on the bed in agony, not saying a word to either of us.Mum was very worried about Rafas death i will always remember when she kept on saying deja de fumar to rafa but he never listened. Mum was conscious of rafa because she always knew something like this was going to happen one day. Mummy got no sleep at all, all she was doing was sitting on rafas bed singing him those bed time songs when we fell asleep while holding his hand.

The next day  we heard was the heart monitor beeping but it was only one scale, ma shouted at me asking to get help soon as possible,the doctors came in the room and my mum asked if her son was going to be OK and the doctors replied we are going to try our best to safe him. as ma left the room she was looking at the window to see if rafas operation was going well, the doctors tried the defibrillator like 5 times but he still was not waking up they tried one more time but there was no response, we saw the doctors and they told us that

One day in a small city called London there was a boy named William with a family of five and in his family there was his mum Annette who is called, his dad  who is called Tomas , his brother who is called David , his sister who is called Lisa and grandma is called Greta who lived in a tiny house in London.  During the time they were living in world war 2 was happening  were England was versing Germany. This war was a big war were certain countries had to interfere to stop the killing of innocents and to help England defeat a country who had a horrible ruler called Hitler, Hitler was the captain/leader of a large group which was based in Germany and in that group they disliked certain people of certain races such as Jews and other authentic races and what the leader would do is trick Jews into involving with them and after they fall into the trap they kill them in gas chambers or other forms of ways, so the world that William was living in was terrible and horrible place were am sure no one wanted to live in.

During the war Williams mum gave William and his siblings chores, now Williams chores was to go outside the house and to collect the rationed food and to come back straight home with his siblings. Williams dad had to join the war to serve for his country even as much his family missed him he still had to go but he still received postcards from his dad to tell him what was happening and hows he doing. Williams mum had to go to work to get the rations so really it was only there grandma to look after William and his siblings.

As William was the oldest and his Grandma Greta looked because the mum and dad go to work and get home by 5  William grandma sits on that brown rocking chair changing up the rules and the main rule was that William goes out to get the food rations from the shop then come straight bAck because people have been abducted or taken by someone or something, as  William was walking back home because he got the supply he took a quicker root to get him back home then an Alien ship came fast so fast as soon as William looked up The ship abducted him. An hour later William was opened his eyes and looked around thinking where am I until a alien william screamed when he saw the alien then the alien came and told him “you are in our spaceship and our world”, William was scared when he saw the alien, the alien was green with big bubble eyes big long claws and a big head but, back in London William was supposed to be home by 5 so because his parent goes home by 4.30 and usually gets home by 5 and they always want William and the siblings wait at the door for there bedtime kiss but then the parents noticed that William wasn’t there so the parents were in shock and couldn’t do anything.

The alien that had William was short of a army alien to fight the other side of war so the alien done a deal with him that was if you help up in our last war we would return you back to your planet earth and if you don’t you stay here forever as soon as the alien said that to him he instantly replied with a straight yes but still had fear with in him then William said to the alien if I help you can you help England with world war 2 so the alien replied yes as well so the war began and William was just imagining that the war was a video game, the war started and William was just killing all the aliens then the war was over and the alien was thinking that he was a good warrior and should join his army in case another war happened but he remembered that he had to taking him back to England therefore he did and William went back home shocking his parent telling them that he was hiding because he saw German soldiers then later on in his years he went to join the war with the aliens helping him.

The way Reeve creates an effect on the character is the personality that  shrike has e.g like he has different sides to him that can make people very scared. In the story the author makes shrike a nice calm and cares for people like Hester Shaw e.g when Hester Shaw wanted to go to London but Shrike warned her not to go London or herself and himself will get caught and killed, but on the other hand he has a bad villain side to him that scares people e.g when he said to Hester Shaw ” YOU CANT COME HERE CHILD”, another example in he book to show that Shrike is a scary character in the story is when he quotes ” I-AM-A-STALK-ER-! EX-TER-MIN-ATE s the way it comes across people reading the book makes him a bad character but on the other side Shrike has a good side to him for example,in chapter 13 he warned Hester Shaw not to go to London or herself or himself will get killed so this shows that  Shrike has a caring loving side to him.

Another way that Reeve creates an effect on shrike is his appearance in the book (mortal engines). In the book Shrike is  described as a cyborg with big long sharp claws with big, round, bulgy, dark green eyes that glow in the dark and he clothes are torn and ripped, so the way Reeve creates shrike by appearance that comes across to other people that reads the book, is that shrike is a monster and not a good character but on the other hand he has a caring loving side to him for example, when he warns Hester Shaw not to go to London or himself or herself will get killed.

Another way that Reeve creates an effect on shrike is by the way he describes him, in the book (mortal engines) the description of Shrike is in depth detail e.g, Philip Reeve describes Shrike as a big tall cyborg with big long sharp claws with big round bulgy dark green eyes that glow in the dark he’s clothes are torn and ripped so the way the description comes across to people is that shrike is a bad character, but has a good side to him as well

Shrike is a mysterious and violent character in the book mortal engines, the reason why he is a violent character is because when he first came to the air heaven and killed Anna valentine and several air-haven but in the book shrike cannot hurt humans, he can only harm stalkers, the only reason why he cannot hurt human children or humans is because he once had a human child before they changed him to a stalker. in the book Shrike is only known for helping children like when he helped Hester Shaw was half dead therefore he adopts her another reason why he helps children is because the mayor wants Shrike to kill the child of someone else but instead he kills the mayor instead of the children he kills the mayor.

Another way that Philip Reeve creates an effect on Shrike is by faking his character and adding allot of story behind his character like when he was a human before and the air haven turned him into a stalker or cyborg and the mayor sets him a mission to kill all children but before he was a human so he had a human son therefore he kills the mayor instead of doing as he said. so the way Philip Reeve creates the character is by making him a good character.